


What He Won't Say

by AgenderMaine (AngelusErrare)



Series: Hello Again [1]
Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Afterlife, Canon-typical language, south being south
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-28
Updated: 2016-06-28
Packaged: 2018-07-18 22:01:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7332250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngelusErrare/pseuds/AgenderMaine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the afterlife, the Dakota twins are reunited. </p><p>Given what South has done, there are things that need to be said, and North won't let her get away without saying them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What He Won't Say

She hates silences.

He's okay with them.

He knows she's waiting for him to break this one, and he won't. Just stares at her, matching her glare evenly. He's in her way, well aware of the fact, taking up quite a bit of space leaning there in the doorway, arms crossed in front of his chest. He isn't wearing armor, but she isn't armed. Not like he can die again, anyway. A punch will still sting like a wicked bitch, but pain fades quickly here; injuries don't seem to last.

"You gonna fuckin' stand there all day?!"

He resists the urge to quirk a smile, the corners of his lips twitching momentarily. "Maybe."

And he could if he wanted to. Time isn't exactly of the utmost importance anymore, and he deals with boredom far better than she does.

"The fuck do you want me to say, North?" she snaps. She still hasn't stripped off the rest of her armor, but she looks like she wants to throw her helmet at him. "'I'm sorry for getting you killed?' 'Cause I'm not, okay? Now get out of my fucking way."

She's lying and they both know it. Of course she's sorry. Just like she's sorry for shooting Wash, for wanting to leave Delta, for everything she did to save her own skin as the Meta tracked her down. She's always been a shit liar, and for all her tough-girl posturing he's always been able to read her like a book.

It's what brothers do.

"It would be nice, South, but it's not a requirement."

He's always been the calm one when her temper spikes, and he knows his soft tone is pissing her off, but he won't stop yet; not until she runs out of steam. If he moves too soon this won't go as planned.

He can wait. Snipers are patient.

"Then what _do_ you want me to say?" South lifts her head defiantly, her longer blonde hair falling in her face as she tries so hard to stare him down. "You want me down on my knees? Want me to grovel? Beg forgiveness? I don't _want_ your fucking forgiveness!"

 _Yes you do,_ North thinks, but if he voices the thought she'll try to rip his tongue out. "Then what do _you_ want?"

His use of her phrasing isn't lost on his sister, and it only infuriates her more. "I want to go to my fucking locker and get out of this fucking armor!"

"We're _dead_ , South. You can go anywhere to dress down, and you choose the _locker room?_ "

"We're on the fucking ship," she snarls, "and I'll undress wherever the fuck I want to! I don't need your fucking _permission!_ "

North frowns, leans his head back against the rec room door jamb, and sighs. "That's not what I was saying, South."

"Then what _were_ you saying, North?!"

"Things are different now. We've got all the time in the world. We don't have to waste it on old regulations and routines. And we don't have to waste it on guilt and bitterness," he adds, locking eyes with her again.

"I told you I don't fucking regret saving my own ass."

"' _Here I am now, just wondering how I'm gonna live without him_ '," North quotes, watching pain and disbelief flash across his sister's eyes. "That's what you told Wash, right?" He pauses, stands upright in the middle of the doorway, arms still crossed. "So tell me, South, are you sure you don't regret anything?"

"Wash shot me. We're even." They both know it's a weak excuse; North sees it in her eyes, the set of her jaw, the way her arms hang at her sides instead of trying to find something nearby to pummel him with. She sighs. "What is it you want from me?"

He opens his arms and manages not to smile at the disbelief plain on her face. "How about a hug? Think you can do that?"

When he relates this whole affair to York later, North won't say that she ran. South will skin him if she ever hears he told anyone that. No, when he sits down with York in the mess with a beer nobody expected to exist in the afterlife, he won't tell his best friend how his sister ran to him. "You know South," he'll say, and the wince as he shifts won't be feigned. "She had to give me a few bruises."

He won't tell York _how_ he got the bruises; how her armor dug painfully into his waist from the strength of her hug. He won't tell York how he knows she was crying, how those little wet spots magically appeared on his shirt when she pulled away to wipe at her face. No, he won't tell York she apologized, told him how awful and lonely she was (and he definitely won't tell his friend how mutual that feeling was; York and Florida are good friends, but they just don't match up to his twin). He won't tell York how they fell into step beside each other, his arm over her shoulders, and how she _let him_ instead of slamming his ass to the floor.

And he definitely-- as long as he values his un-life or whatever it is-- will never, ever tell York that South's last words to him before she went to undress were, "Thank you."


End file.
